AppCivist: User Research
AppCivist is an online platform for social activist groups to create and debate proposals in virtual spaces called assemblies. This project was what I worked on during my time at UC Berkeley as part of the Social Apps Lab, a division of CITRIS.
I joined the team a semester after work had begun in Spring of 2015. AppCivist was broken into multiple modules for each phase of the deliberation process. UX Researchers were paired with front-end developers to design their assigned module, which would then be developed by front and back-end teams. We were first assigned to the “Mobilization” module, which focused on getting activists and people sympathetic to the group’s cause into action, whether said action is a street protest, lobbying city government, etc.
During this time, I played a more passive role as I was still learning about the program and the app but contributed to several wireframes and user stories. At the end of the semester, we presented our work and received approval from the project leadership.
In the Fall of 2015, I and several others were advanced to do UX Research for the whole app. We created two major deliverables, a user story with wireframes to outline the user journey, and a formal testing protocol. You can view these deliverables below.
In the Spring of 2016, my final semester at Berkeley, we put our testing protocol into action with several student groups that we recruited, promising them funding in exchange for their time and usage of the app over the course of the semester. The beta test/ usability evaluation was a success, and we learned several key pain points that prevented more extensive use of the app. The most crucial of these were the fact that AppCivist lacked a proper notification system. Students did not know when proposals had been made or commented on because they did not get any emails, and there was no notification icon (ex: the globe/bell for Facebook) that held notifications to display on user arrival. We passed this information on to the developers, and these features were implemented.
Thanks to our work, AppCivist is now used by several medium-sized cities in California for creating and deliberating proposals that relate to participatory budgeting with city residents.
Special thanks go to the following individuals:
Dr. James Holston for his leadership and mentorship, and for introducing me to the field of UX Research.
Cristhian Parra for his leadership in the Social Apps Lab.
Natasha Hoherchak for her assistance in creating all the required deliverables.